Your voice like this
by acciograce
Summary: Not all mornings are this good. But Katniss and Peeta make the most of them when they are.


Mornings like this one, when I wake from a dreamless sleep, are the best. Rare gifts, each a reprieve from nightmares of death and gore and destruction. I awake with a clear head, with a curling sense of unbidden hope deep in my heart that someday things will be better for us more often than they are not.

And mornings like this, when Peeta is still resting peacefully too, are my favorite. Because of the way we celebrate the morning, and each other, and the life we are building together now.

I am up first today. I wrap my body around his, my leg across his hip, my arm over his chest and my hand threading gently into his hair. We fit together well. Two broken pieces of a puzzle.

"Peeta," I murmur into his throat, though I know he's already stirring, his arm wrapping instinctively around my waist to pull me closer.

"Morning." I hear the smile in his voice and see it in his blue eyes, warm, even as sleep lingers slowly behind his lashes. I raise my chin to bring my lips to his, slowly, deliberately. He reciprocates and in an instant, I begin to feel that primal need for him building in my core. I rock against him softly and he releases a soft moan. And this is how it starts.

We've been together like this for months now. It took two years of waging our own internal wars with the unforgiving desperation of surviving what so many of our loved ones did not. Then slowly, we began to forgive ourselves and find solace in one another. Peeta and I relied on each other to soothe the terror of nightmares. My bed became his. We clung together in bed the way we did on the train and then we clung together in a way that was excitingly new.

It was a slow, tentative burn. An unspoken courtship built out of mourning and the fear that our war wounds would be the undoing of one another. But our goodnight kisses started to last into early morning, and the heat between us grew until neither of us wanted to set it aside.

I stopped feeling guilty for feeling anything at all. Peeta stopped worrying every second that he'd lose control of his flashbacks and hurt me. We came together for the first time – one afternoon in early spring when a thunderstorm spread slowly across the Victor's Village.

Since then, we've learned how to love one another together. Peeta has become an avid student of my body, and I have begun to understand on instinct the way his body moves and responds to my own.

He knows when he's inside me and stills my hips with his hands, pressing into me just so, the pleasure is so powerful that I feel it in my spine. And he knows when he thrusts into me slowly and runs his tongue along my collarbone, I can't help but chant his name when I let go.

I know if I tangle my tongue with his and suck lightly when he comes, that his orgasm lasts twice as long. And that if I keep my mouth on his mouth and trap him inside me with my legs around his hips, it won't be long before he's ready again.

And while I love the feelings I've discovered with him – the liquid sensation between my legs, the pulsing fire and friction that builds to an unimaginable pleasure – I think what I love more is the intimacy we've built. How much this does to bring down our walls, to help us both heal. How sacred it feels to be so close to the boy with the bread.

This morning, I'm on top of him and we take our time. Usually, I have to curb the desire to rush through, to ride him until we're both satiated. I know when it's like that, I can finish us both in a matter of seconds.

But we have nowhere to be, and there's nothing I'll enjoy more today than the stunningly hot feeling of his mouth on my breasts, or the gasps that escape from his mouth as I rock slowly, slowly against him.

After, we lay side by side. Peeta gently wipes my hair back from my face and I lazily wrap my hand around his hipbone and stroke the skin there. "That was good," he says, his lips on mine and then just centimeters away.

"Peeta," I whisper.

He cups my face in his hands and rests my forehead against his after pressing an impossibly soft kiss there. "You know," he says, "I used to fantasize about this."

I used to feel so uncomfortable when he talked about the depth of his feelings for me. Guilty, because I hadn't considered him – or us – the way he had before the Games. Guilty because I still didn't know if I could ever consider him – or us – that way.

But now I love to hear him remember, because each time he solidifies these memories in his brain, it brings him a little bit closer to the boy he was before the Capitol tried to destroy him. Because it helps me remember that despite everything, his love for me is a constant – a good remnant of our old lives that we can always carry with us.

"About this?" I prompt him, my hand traveling back around to his lower back.

"About you," he nuzzles against me. "About us together. Before, it was in the back of the bakery – you covered in flour." He's almost blushing. "On a desk or in the gym at school, in your room on the train."

He pulls back to look at the length of my body. I watch his eyes scan me, reverent. "I pictured you a lot. Every day. Even after the Games." It's almost an apology. I skate my hands over his ass, fingers raising goose bumps on him to reassure and keep him focused on remembering.

"Probably not like this," I murmur. The scars of the war are still so prevalent across my patchwork skin. I've accepted that he still thinks I'm beautiful.

"No," he admits. "This is better." His hands trail delicately down my chest. "These are fuller than I thought they'd be," he says as he cups my breasts. "And they feel…" it's a whisper, and he is already hardening again. "And your hips, the way they curve, are so much sexier than I could have imagined."

I feel my pulse quickening.

"Peeta," I say again, my hands trying to push his hips closer to mine, to close the distance between us. But he still has more to say.

"But your voice like this," he says. "Is exactly how I pictured it would be." His own voice is deeper now. "It's funny. I barely heard you speak. But I knew how incredible it would be to hear you say my name when you wanted me."

I can't stop myself from kissing him now. His mouth captures mine so completely, and the need I feel is so pronounced, it takes everything to hold back, to let him finish.

"I pictured it so many times," his voice is almost a growl in my ear and sends shivers down my spine. My legs tangle with his and our touches are becoming desperate. "But it's still perfect. It makes me want you so badly."

"Peeta," it's a gasp now. And what else can I say? I can't tell him I used to want him the way he wanted me – the way I want him now – because I didn't. And we don't lie to each other anymore.

But I think of the way I want him now – how my thoughts turn to him even when I'm hunting. How I passed a patch of lush green grass last week and imagined us making love there, out in the open. How my hand brushed across the smooth bark of a white tree and I couldn't help but think how easy it would be for Peeta to push me up against it and take me there.

He is on top of me now, his mouth against my throat, hand painting invisible circles on the inside of my thigh. I scrape my hands against his back and pull his ear to my lips. My voice – the one he wanted for so long – is barely a whisper.

"I think of you when I'm in the woods."

His hand stills. He wasn't expecting this.

"I think of us," My teeth graze his lobe and he shudders against me. "Of us like this."

Peeta pulls up to look at me, his eyes blazingly dark with love and desire. He searches my face, the question unspoken – Real?

I pull him between my legs and with a whimper, he slides inside of me. His name is on my lips again, this time as a moan. But my kiss is the only answer he needs.

- end -


End file.
